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Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Google Presentations latest capability: Q&A Live

It's REALLY new, hot off the virtual presses: the ability to really interact with your audience, real time, regardless of how many people are there! It rolled out at the beginning of the month, and I had the opportunity to try it out this week at a workshop I gave!

Here is a short explanation of what it does:

And this is Karissa Bell's blog post on "Mashable" explaining a bit more.

It sounded so exciting, that I decided to jump straight into the deep end (that's the ONLY way to learn how to swim, right?)

I made my presentation using Google Slides, as you normally would. When it came time to start the session, I clicked on the "Present" button. With Q & A, you are given the options of "Presenter View" or "Present from the beginning". In order to use the Q& A, you want the first option.

Once you open that "Presenter View" you see a screen that looks like this:

Click on "Audience Tools" and another window pops open, giving you a short (relatively) URL, and you can see the window where all of the audience questions will be visible. The URL will be viewable at the top of each of your slides throughout the presentation.

Another convenient tool that is here is a laser pointer - try that, too!The tool worked really well. The only suggestion would have are the following:

1. Since the screen that is projected is the same screen you are working from, the audience can see all of the questions. They can ALSO see the questions on their devices, of course, which is where they write their own questions and vote for questions they "second". However while I was giving the presentation, I wanted to check the questions on my own, to see when they were coming in. I was not happy with the fact that I couldn't do that without obstructing my presentation slides. In future when I use this tool, I will have another device (either bring my laptop or view on my phone) so that I can check audience feedback without interrupting the flow of the presentation.

2. It would be REALLY helpful if, in addition to the URL, there were a barcode (which is easier to scan than it is typing in the letters).

I DEFINITELY plan to use this tool in future presentations, and highly recommend you try it, as well! It is a tool that will be making appearances in my future sessions and my high school classes! How about YOU? Have you tried it?

Digitally yours,

@dele

PS (I must admit that until now, I have used PowerPoint presentations more than Google Slides, but with this new function, it could be a game changer for me!)